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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
Marvelous Maisie's big finale
Marketing people, don't you just love them? Stand still for five minutes and they'll re-brand you.
Racing at York has ended for the year with a meeting featuring the Coral Sprint since time immemorial, or at least for as long as I can remember (which is not - quite - the same thing).
Turned up today to find signs proclaiming the 'October Finale'.
Can't fault the accuracy. It's October and it's the final meeting of the season. But people have turned up year after year without its being given a fancy title - 20,000-odd made the trip for the Saturday last year.
Today was 'Countryside Raceday', the first staging of an event which attempted to: "Combine the best of Yorkshire racing with Yorkshire countryside activities and produce."
Not sure how much produce they might have pushed but they certainly put on an unusual spectacle - Maisie the border collie herding a gaggle of geese on the course between races.
Though ducks would have been more appropriate, as 34mm of rain overnight caused numerous ponds to spring up all across the Knavesmire - clerk of the course William Derby reckoned they'd not have raced but for the extensive drainage project carried out a few years ago.
One look at poor Lauren Mulholland told you how bad conditions were in the middle. She was covered in mud after being splattered while leading No Poppy across the track from the stables - let's hope she backed the filly she looks after as the four-year-old's 11-1 victory may well have paid the cleaning bill.
Aside from the marvelous Maisie, the most unexpected sight of the day was the 2p and a 1p piece lying on the step outside the press room door before the first race.
Either somebody had a hole in their pocket or it was the most half-hearted attempt to bribe the press the world has ever seen.
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